282 REPORT—1852. 
rages from four to five cwt. per acre. Some time ago I made an experiment 
at one of the country scutch-mills nearBelfast, for the purpose of ascertaining 
the relative proportions of the various qualities of fibre, and also the distri- 
bution of the inorganic matters. The flax employed had been steeped in the 
usual way, and was found to contain 1°73 per cent. of inorganic matters :-—— 
4000 lbs. of air-dried straw produced of — 
DIT ESSGM CH Rincte Mets veth-wc ov ekaisinuasussaiane teeteanue 500 lbs. 
1 ENVECEPUN ON? ants hr NRE eee nn tate eaa ent 1 1474) | sie 
(GOnise ch Wane tetas each d. Mimosy 580 acc aonet ethene OSS 
824 lbs. 
An examination of the amount of ash which the above materials respec- 
tively contained, showed that its distribution was as follows :— 
In the flax............ 4°48 lbs. of inorganic matters. 
In the fine tow........ 2°08 
In the coarse tow...... 2°56, or in all 9°12 lbs. 
So that 59°08lbs. of the inorganic matters, which the crop had withdrawn 
from the field, remained locked up in the woody shoves, which, as obstinately 
resisting decomposition, are used for fuel, while 9°12 lbs. were carried away 
in the dressed flax and tow sold to the spinner. 
Accelerated Fermentation—The Patent System.—For so far, we have con- 
sidered the preparation of the flax fibre solely as constituting a part of the 
ordinary farm operations of this country. Where the necessary amount of 
intelligence prevails among the agricultural community, with regard to the 
proper cultivation of the crop and its after treatment, as is the case in Belgium, 
in some provinces of which country frequently 10 per cent. of the cultivated 
area is devoted to its production, and in Ulster, where we find that, in 1851, 
one out of every 44 acres was under flax, experience has taught the farmer, 
that even with the various disadvantages attendant upon the old and uncer- 
tain methods of management, it is capable of yielding considerable profit to the 
grower. Notwithstanding, however, the efforts which have been made by 
societies and government to extend the cultivation of the crop to those di- 
stricts in the south and west of the kingdom, where, for various reasons, it was 
most important that the means of occupation which it was found to afford in 
Ulster should be rendered available, great difficulties were experienced, both 
from the deficiency of skilled labour and the want of convenient markets for 
the produce. Fortunately, at a time when great discouragements had been ex- 
perienced by those who had entertained the expectation that the fertile soils 
of the south of Ireland were destined to render our manufacturers independent 
of the supplies of foreign countries, the attention of the flax-growers of Ulster 
was directed to a system of flax management, proposed by an American 
named Schenck, which appeared to remove all the difficulties of the old 
system, and promised completely to revolutionize the ceconomy of the crop. 
In the method of Mr. Schenck, as in the old system, a process of fermentation 
is employed for the separation of the fibre; but instead of the steeping being 
conducted in the open air in shallow pools, it is made a factory operation, 
and the requisite changes are accelerated by placing the rippled flax in water 
maintained at an elevated temperature. ‘This method is not new, but had 
been proposed by Professor Scheidweiler in Belgium, and tried in this country 
several years before the arrival of Mr. Schenck. It also appears to have 
been employed by the Malays and the natives of Bengal; but it is to the late 

